Tornadoes

I'll be honest -- I'm terrified of tornadoes. I've experienced my share of natural disasters, and don't get too worked up about earthquakes or hurricanes. But tornadoes ... tornadoes scare the living daylights out of me. For that reason, we have a basement, and a few years ago my husband got me a weather radio for our bedroom. For Christmas, no less. We're big romantics that way.

When I was in college and lifeguarding my summers away in Colorado, I got somewhat accustomed to seeing funnel clouds in the sky, usually far away on the plains. Most places you watch for lightning; in Colorado we watched for lightning and funnel clouds. My parents lived on the high plains, and most years a twister touched down somewhere in their general vicinity, but never close enough to their house to really warrant an anxiety attack.

I vividly recall seeing a tornado touch down in Miami about 12 years ago while at work. I was elsewhere in the office and when I returned to my office, there were several people clustered at the window behind my desk, watching a tornado touch down just on our side of the interstate, probably about 2 miles away. On the one hand, it was hypnotic to watch the debris flying, and it was far enough from us that we didn't have to worry about being damaged by it. But on the other hand, my instinct was to bolt -- it didn't matter where, just away from that window. I stood in the doorway and watched while the anxiety grew within me, and was poised to sprint down the hall to the file room at the first sign that the tornado was heading our way. As terrified as I was, I was unable to look away from Nature's fury.

Thankfully for us, once the twister finished tearing apart the buildings unlucky enough to be located on that street corner, it lifted up and disappeared back into the black clouds. That same afternoon, another one touched down near the college campus where Bret was studying, and we were able to compare tornado stories when we got home. I think I won.

So. I have a history of fearing these storms. And three different storms, on three different days this past spring, will be forever etched into my memory.

Back in January, we learned that my mom's chemotherapy treatments were not having the desired effect -- or really, any effect -- on the cancer. So we supported her in her decision to discontinue treatment, and took her home to begin hospice.

Super Tuesday was two days after we took her home. Hospice had set up her hospital bed in the living room since she wanted to be in the heart of the house. And as we watched the news, the primary election results were overshadowed by the news of a terrible storm system that was tearing through Tennessee. Tornadoes had damaged towns in Arkansas and western Tennessee, and we were directly in their path. For hours that evening, as Mom dozed, my dad and I watched the radar maps that were tracking the storms as they rampaged towards us. With dread, we watched the news reports of the destruction of part of a college campus, and the panic began to really take hold when they hit Nashville. All I could think of was, their house has no basement, and their "safe place" is under the stairs in the garage.

"Dad," I asked, quietly because I didn't want to distub Mom, "how are we going to get Mom down there?" She wasn't a large person, and we're both pretty strong, but it would be a real challenge to maneuver her down the narrow flight of stairs and into the garage storage area.

"We can't. But if we need to, we can go into the laundry room in the center of the house. It has no windows, and is the safest place inside." It would have been tight, but we did have a wheelchair and we could manage.

As it turned out, the storm changed slightly in its course once it left Nashville, and headed far enough away that we never did have to load Mom into the wheelchair and into the "Not-Quite-So-Safe-Place." And I'm sure that if we'd had to hunker down in there and wait out a storm, it would have been much more frightening. But it was pretty scary, and it just illustrated all that I hate about tornadoes. You're so helpless, and all you can do is wait and see if the fickle finger of fury will single you out. Talk about the epitome of vulnerability. And, being a bit of a control freak, there is little I hate more than having no control.

Fast forward two weeks. I was at home that Sunday afternoon, with a long list of tasks that needed to be done before I headed back to Tennessee the next afternoon. Being a procrastinator, I figured I'd get to it all in the afternoon and evening. Yeah, well, it was a nice plan while it lasted. Here comes a storm in from Alabama, and it was big enough and fierce enough to drive even my big strong husband into the basement for most of the late afternoon.

It was nice to spend a few hours playing Yahtzee as a family, even though I was preoccupied by my worry and my ever-growing to-do list. And of course, by the threat of tornadoes whirling about somewhere not too distant. As soon as we heard the all-clear on the radio, we went back upstairs and I called my dad to check in about my drive up the following day. Mom had declined suddenly over the past day or so, and I was trying to get all my loose ends tied up in case I couldn't get back home the following weekend as planned.
Later that evening my brother called to tell me that Mom had decided that it was "time" -- that she was ready to go. She was basically just waiting for me to get there. Tornado forgotten, I put the kids to bed, loaded the car and went to bed. The next morning, I hit the road before dawn, and heard reports on the radio of the damage from the previous day's storms. As I drove, I could see the evidence -- highway signs twisted completely apart, billboards downed and limbs and debris littering the roadside.
Fast forward another 3 weeks. My mom had passed away, and we were all gathered in Tennessee for her funeral. Late Friday night we heard reports of a tornado hitting downtown Atlanta. The next morning, an hour or so before we left for the service, my husband received a call from one of his team telling him that their office had been severely damaged by the storm. All I could think was "Another one?"
We're fortunate, I guess, in that of all three storms over that 6-week period, we weren't injured or permanently affected. Even my husband's office is back to normal. But something is nagging at me. Isn't it strange that three significant events over the last month of my mom's life were marked by tornadoes? Did I just notice them for some reason?
Or are they somehow a metaphor for my struggle with my mom's cancer? It was so difficult for me to accept and find peace with the fact that I had no control whatsoever over the outcome. And when I think about it, her cancer was like a tornado that whipped through our lives, destroying our neat plans and leaving in its wake the debris of our grief. And, like survivors of natural disasters, we have cleaned up what we can and moved forward with our lives. Even while looking back over our shoulders at the sky, watching the horizon for signs of another storm.
I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Maybe because today marks six months since Mom died. Somehow it seems like a hundred years ago, and at the same time it seems like just last week. And I'd been doing a better job at compartmentalizing my sadness. But lately it's been creeping back into the other compartments of my emotions, and instead of trying to just shove it back in and slam the door, I thought maybe if I address it for once and for all, then maybe (just maybe) it will be content to stay put.
I have no answers, just so many questions. And I had peace, but if I'm honest, sometimes it feels like the calm before the storm, and there's a part of me that's just waiting for another storm to churn through and blow it to pieces.
Not the healthiest way to feel, I know. I'm working on it. But is it normal?